This entertaining mystery opens with Hercule Poirot receiving an urgent but enigmatic telephone summons from his friend Ariadne Oliver, the detective novelist. She wants him to join her at Nasse House, a Devonshire mansion. Intrigued, Poirot agrees, to find that Mrs Oliver has been engaged by Sir George Stubbs of Nasse House to arrange a variation on the theme of a treasure hunt - a Murder Hunt - as the centrepiece of a village fete. But the novelist believes that 'there's something wrong' at Nasse House and that the scene is set for a real murder.
She proves to be right when, in the company of Poirot she discovers the body of a 14 year old village girl who was assisting with the event. Marlene Tucker has been garrotted with a piece of clothes line. The killing appears to be inexplicable, as does the sudden disappearance of Lady Stubbs, but before long another villager dies - elderly Mr Merdell is found to have drowned after an evening in the pub. Poirot is baffled for some time by these developments but eventually pieces together an ingenious series of crimes. Elements of the plot are a trifle far-fetched, but altogether this is a breezy and enjoyable Christie which benefits from its super-typical country village setting.